IN the lead-up to Wednesday night’s Chandler Medal, EFL Media’s Peter Baird spoke to each of the coaches to get their thoughts on who would poll well and take out their respective division’s best and fairest.
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Coaches were asked to nominate their three standout players from the division and award 3, 2 and 1 votes respectively to who they believe would take home the award.
Division 2 appears to be the most open count of all the four divisions. The 10 coaches nominated a total of 14 different players amongst their top three for season 2018, and five different players were selected to take home the Kenneth Wright Medal.
The most popular pick however was Upper Ferntree Gully jet, Matt Lee, who was the top pick of four of the coaches. Followed closely behind him, Doncaster East’s Simon White received maximum votes from three.
Others to receive nominations as a selection to take home the award were Upper Gully’s Tom Meagher, Doncaster East’s James Appleby, and two-time Kenneth Wright Medallist, Joel Galvin from Bayswater.
Full details of all the votes awarded and totals are detailed in the table below:
| Name | Club | Votes | Total | |||||
| Matt Lee | Upper FTG | 3 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 15 |
| Simon White | Doncaster East | 3 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 10 | ||
| Tom Meagher | Upper FTG | 2 | 3 | 5 | ||||
| Beau Mitchener | Lilydale | 1 | 2 | 2 | 5 | |||
| Ryan Harvey | Lilydale | 1 | 2 | 2 | 5 | |||
| James Appleby | Doncaster East | 1 | 3 | 4 | ||||
| Jake Summers | Doncaster East | 2 | 2 | 4 | ||||
| Joel Galvin | Bayswater | 3 | 3 | |||||
| Brock McLean | Doncaster East | 2 | 2 | |||||
| Seb Henderson | Mulgrave | 2 | 2 | |||||
| Will Edwards | Wantirna South | 2 | 2 | |||||
| Joel Perry | Upper FTG | 1 | 1 | |||||
| Lahlan Koger | Lilydale | 1 | 1 | |||||
| Patrick Klep | Lilydale | 1 | 1 | |||||
If the Division 1 Chandler Medal was a horse race, then Chris Annakis from Doncaster would be shorter than Winx to take home his second award in two seasons, according to the men in charge of their teams in 2018.
Of the 12 coaches, Annakis was either the first or second pick by 11 of them. In total, five of the Division 1 coaches selected him to receive maximum votes and it appears his closest competition may come from Noble Park captain, Kyle Martin, who was favoured by three coaches.
It could be a big week for South Croydon captain Dan King who could be looking to add to his previous Chandler Medal; teammate Max King and Vermont ruckman Liam Buxton will all be looking for premiership success in the Bendigo Bank Division 1 grand final on Saturday at Bayswater after they were also selected to win the Chandler Medal by one coach respectively.
Norwood forward, Leigh Williams also received maximum votes from a single coach and remains one of the premier players in Division 1 who can’t be discounted as a potential chance.
Full details of all the votes awarded and totals are detailed in the table below:
| Name | Club | Votes | Total | ||||||||||
| Chris Annakis | Doncaster | 3 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 27 |
| Kyle Martin | Noble Park | 3 | 3 | 3 | 9 | ||||||||
| Dan King | South Croydon | 2 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 7 | |||||||
| Liam Buxton | Vermont | 2 | 3 | 5 | |||||||||
| Tom Schneider | Vermont | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 5 | |||||||
| Max King | South Croydon | 1 | 3 | 4 | |||||||||
| Alex Frawley | Rowville | 1 | 2 | 3 | |||||||||
| Leigh Williams | Norwood | 3 | 3 | ||||||||||
| Xavier Murphy | Blackburn | 2 | 2 | ||||||||||
| Adam Parker | Vermont | 2 | 2 | ||||||||||
| Tyson Hartwig | Doncaster | 1 | 1 | ||||||||||
| Frank Anderson | South Croydon | 1 | 1 | ||||||||||
| Tim Jones | Montrose | 1 | 1 | ||||||||||
| Brett Eddy | Vermont | 1 | 1 | ||||||||||
| Rhett Jordan | Norwood | 1 | 1 | ||||||||||
